A blog about Northeast energy issues, and in support of nuclear power.

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Why the Rush to Industrial Wind Isn't Good for Vermont: The Press Conference

At a press conference Thursday two Vermont senators announced proposed legislation for a three-year moratorium on new industrial wind development on Vermont's ridges. Rob Roper of the Ethan Allen Institute made four-minute video at the conference: it has some amazing graphics of wind development.

Two recent articles also cover this press conference:

Brattleboro Reformer: The Local Ridges

An article by Mike Faher in the Brattleboro Reformer describes the press conference, and connects it to the town of Windham's fight against industrial wind on its local ridges. (The town of Windham is in Windham County, which is also home to the town of Vernon and Vermont Yankee.)

Eight pro-wind groups made a lengthy statement against this proposed legislation. The groups include the local Sierra Club, Citizens Awareness Network (their website is nukebusters.org), and the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance. The Reformer article says: In the groups' press release, Kilian characterized wind-power opposition as "the extreme voices of those who refuse to take responsibility for our energy future."
(Snark warning I just LOVE it when nuclear-opponents-and-wind-promoters insult people that way. Winning people to your side by name-calling. Go for it, guys! Do some more of this! End snark.)

Vermont Digger:The Governor's Opinion and the Bill Itself

An article by Andrew Stein in Vermont Digger includes a video of the conference, a link to the draft bill itself, and an interesting correction (the correction, IMO, is not the reporter's fault...)

Here's the correction: Gov. Peter Shumlin said on Friday that he is still vehemently opposed to the idea of a moratorium on utility-scale wind development. VTDigger originally reported that Shumlin indicated earlier this week that he was not completely opposed to the idea.
The Digger article has a lengthy comment stream, including many comments by my friend Willem Post. Post is a world-wide authority on wind power and its problems. He has many excellent posts on wind power on The Energy Collective website. Thousands of people follow his posts there. He is also an occasional guest blogger on this blog.

4 comments:

Re: "The Reformer article says: In the groups' press release, Kilian characterized wind-power opposition as "the extreme voices of those who refuse to take responsibility for our energy future."

Gee, who the heck passed these groups' rabid fears the responsibility of denying others a proven clean quiet and low-footprint power source? More videos of razed mountains and scarred vistas courtesy of wind power to go with sheared off coal-mountaintops, please!

Thank you both for your comments. If you read the backup articles, you will see that the people objecting to the wind farms are just local people. Some of them are pro-nuclear, many of them are against nuclear. Most of them would like the wind farms to be required to have the sort of review that ski resorts undergo. Vermonters don't like their mountains chopped up for no good reason.

The dedicated anti-nuclear groups, however, VPIRG, CLF, CAN, Decommissioning Alliance—these groups are totally pro-wind. These groups sent out that press release. These groups insult people if the people are not pro-wind.

Sometimes people accuse nuclear advocates as being in an echo chamber...that we only speak to those already convinced. I think the "environmental" groups are in a far more sound-proof echo chamber. They can't even imagine why anyone would be opposed to their policies. Anybody opposed to their policies is a person with a moral failing, and they are eager to point that out.

"They can't even imagine why anyone would be opposed to their policies. Anybody opposed to their policies is a person with a moral failing, and they are eager to point that out."

You see this tactic played out all the time in the climate change debates. Anyone who questions the climate change othodoxy is immediately branded as an "extremist", or "kook", or "outside the mainstream of scientific opinion". Its nothing more than Alinksy tactics applied to the energy debate: ridicule and marinalize those who oppose you.